


Under My Skin

by tttyg



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-28 09:05:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/990226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tttyg/pseuds/tttyg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I love you so much that it hurts my head</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Say I don't mind you under my skin</i>
  <br/>
  <i>I'll let the bad parts in, the bad parts in</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**_Goodbye to sleep_ **

**_Well I think this staying up is exactly what I need_ **

 

Pete doesn’t remember when it started, but by the time the milestone of 21 is behind him the fact that he barely sleeps has become as regular and unremarkable as any other part of his life. Whether it’s the vestiges of school-related stress or a by-product of the weird mania that he develops sometimes, he simply has a lot of trouble trying to shut off his mind enough to slip into temporary unconsciousness. It gets to the point where most nights he doesn’t even try anymore, just stays up watching reruns on TV through glazed eyes and downing an energy drink for breakfast, or unleashing pent-up bitterness and fatigue by letting his worn brain pour out strings of words that barely make sense into his notebook. He never reads them over in the morning or even looks at them again.

Then he meets Patrick.

Joe, the kid who hung around after enough Arma Angelus shows that Pete is beginning to consider him a close friend, had been talking to him the last time about getting together a pop-punk band. Pete is interested, but his expectations aren’t high when Joe tells him he met a kid at a bookstore who wants in. Really, he should be disappointed when they arrive at the kid’s house and the door is opened by a short boy wearing glasses, an argyle sweater and an anxious expression. But Pete knows he was right to withhold judgement when the boy, who introduces himself as Patrick with a slightly sweaty and awkward handshake, leads them down into his basement and gets settled behind the drum kit. He’s got rhythm and passion, and while he’s not the best drummer Pete’s ever seen, he’s got potential. After run-throughs of a couple of songs from Saves The Day’s Through Being Cool album, Joe asks Patrick to play them something on the acoustic guitar.

There’s less distance between Patrick and the other two boys when he sits with the guitar than there was from behind the drum kit, and Pete can see that the younger boy is more nervous now. He launches into an acoustic cover of what Pete recognizes as a Lifetime song, and his face splits into a grin before he realizes it. Buoyed by Pete’s positive reaction, Patrick smiles a little and then opens his mouth and begins to sing. Pete can feel his expression drop almost comically in shock, and Joe elbows him, an unspoken _told you so_. This kid has a _voice_. It’s untrained and too quiet but Pete can hear how that voice will sound with enough practice and maybe even singing his own words–

He fumbles in his pocket for the scrap of paper he knows he stuffed in there a few days or nights ago, the only example of his lyrics he has on him, and he doesn’t even look at them before he thrusts them at Patrick.

“ _Put down that phone, ‘cause if you want me just call out_ – what?”

“Just sing that for me. Please.”

Pete watches Patrick eagerly as he unfolds the crumpled paper and reads the words. “Did you write this?” he asks when he doesn’t recognize them, and Pete nods, ushering him on with an impatient wave of his hand. Patrick’s brow furrows and Pete tries not to focus on the way his teeth rest on his lower lip just shy of biting down in concentration. Patrick coughs and doesn’t look up from the paper as he hums to himself a little, then sings quietly while tapping out a beat on his knee with the flat of his palm, “ _a rivalry goes so deep between me and this loss of sleep over you.”_

Just like that, he put a melody to Pete’s words in a matter of seconds. Pete doesn’t realize that he’s been staring at Patrick and the kid is starting to look uncomfortable until Joe shakes his shoulder.

“What do you think, man?”

“I think,” Pete says, not taking his eyes from Patrick as his lips curve into a smile, “this kid is golden.”

Patrick blushes as he preoccupies himself with putting his guitar away, and Pete smiles wider. There’s something about this kid that gives Pete a good feeling, and he doesn’t want to cut this short, though Patrick is hovering silently by the foot of the stairs as if waiting to show them out.

“Do you write your own songs?” Pete asks, making no move to shift from the low couch he and Joe have been lounging on. With a talent like that, there’s no way Patrick hasn’t at least dabbled.

“Uh, yeah, I mean, I’ve never actually finished one yet, but…”

Pete nods and leaps to his feet, pulling Joe up with him. “Joe’s got your number, right? We’ll arrange a practice sometime later this week.”

If Patrick looks surprised by the sudden development, it’s nothing to how surprised he is when Pete pulls him into a hug. Patrick makes a squeaking sound and his glasses dig into Pete’s shoulder a bit but he gives him an extra squeeze before letting him go. Patrick stumbles back, blushing again, and Joe shakes his head, used to Pete’s random displays of affection by now. He claps Patrick on the back as he passes to get to the stairs, and Pete doesn’t stop grinning at Patrick until they’re out the front door and it’s closed behind them.

That night, Pete gathers all the lyric scraps he can find and tries to put a song together; he wants something to give to Patrick next time he sees him because he can’t wait to hear what the boy can do with it. He’s so overexcited that he wears himself out, and for the first time in as long as he can remember, he falls into an unbroken sleep, sprawled across his bed in a tangle of crumpled paper and ink-stained fingers.

*

The next few months pass in a comfortable blur of twice-weekly band practices. Pete is back at college and Joe and Patrick are still in high school, but they all seem to enjoy spending time trying to get songs together. They don’t even have a permanent drummer, let alone a name, but Pete is always on the lookout for a slot at any show they can play. By the spring, they’ve played enough shitty little shows that people are finally starting to take notice. Their drummers switch out too frequently but the rest is pretty consistent. They cobble together some demos and end up rush-recording a rough album of nine songs that none of them are overly happy with, but it feels like they’re on their way. Patrick and Joe stick out the remaining few months of high school, but Pete drops out of college one semester short of graduation to focus full time on the band. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so passionate or sure of anything as this.

 The only negative in Pete’s life is that he still can’t sleep.

He learns quickly from nights crashing in Patrick’s basement after practices, or Patrick staying over at Pete’s parents’ house and occupying the twin bed in Pete’s room, that the only way he can sleep is if Patrick is around. He doesn’t know why and he tries not to make it obvious how dependent he is on Patrick for this, but he knows that Patrick is too smart not to pick up on it. 

Neither of them comment on it, but Patrick begins to spend more time at Pete’s, even if they’re just goofing around playing video games and eating takeout pizza. The rest of the time Pete becomes a semi-permanent fixture on Patrick’s basement couch. Pete doesn’t know what it is that allows him to relax around Patrick, but he’s too selfish to stay away. It’s not like there’s anything sordid about Pete needing the younger boy nearby in order to get any rest. It’s not like his feelings are anything but platonic.

Pete continues to tell himself this whenever he feels guilty for asking Patrick to sing him to sleep (“Landslide? Again?”) or for watching Patrick’s face and the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest when he falls asleep first.  Patrick never mentions this thing around Joe or anyone else, and he never asks for anything in return for the favor he surely knows he’s doing for Pete.  By now Pete knows he would do anything Patrick asked of him, and he wonders if Patrick knows that too. If maybe he’s content just knowing. Sometimes when they’re writing together Pete catches Patrick looking at him with less of the intimidation of the early days and more the kind of awe he thinks must show on his face when he looks at Patrick, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Some nights Pete doesn’t want to waste the time Patrick chooses to spend with him on sleeping. He keeps Patrick up until the sun is close to rising, just talking and watching TV, the things he used to do to pass the restless nights when he was alone. Somehow they’re less empty with Patrick laughing easily at his jokes and battling yawns in a valiant attempt not to fall asleep on Pete.

It’s one of those nights when Pete realizes he’s been in denial for a while. Since the day he met Patrick, really. He can’t stop watching Patrick in the way he imagines a dehydrated man in a desert must look at an oasis, too perfect to be anything but a mirage. Patrick doesn’t seem to notice, and Pete is glad he doesn’t, because then maybe he’d have to stop and this, whatever it is, would come to an end. Pete doesn’t even want to think about going back to that gray routine of insomnia and constant headaches behind his eyes. Maybe that familiar old worry makes him a little desperate, because he gets it into his mind that he needs to show Patrick how much he really means to him, to secure him in his life.

They’re reworking a song that they recorded in the studio, which they both think could have been done better. Patrick was a little lacking in confidence, despite Pete’s unshakeable support, so Pete had let him have lyrical control. Now he’s throwing bits of Patrick’s lyrics out and replacing them with his own, and though at first Patrick was annoyed (the kid has a quick temper and can be as overly defensive as Pete is overly affectionate) he seems to like the challenge of piecing their work together and finding the right syncopation. Pete could watch him forever, the way he bites his lower lip in concentration and the way his eyes light up and his feet kick out a little when he thinks he’s onto something. Patrick looks up and catches Pete staring, and Pete’s chest feels a little tight when instead of making some sarcastic remark about taking a picture or flipping him off like he usually would, Patrick just wrinkles his nose up at Pete so that his glasses resettle and smiles warmly.

Without thinking, Pete closes the short distance between them and catches Patrick’s mouth with his own. Patrick makes a small startled sound but for a moment it’s like he’s kissing back. Then he plants both hands on Pete’s chest and shoves him away. Pete falls back onto the bed, one hand behind him to catch his fall and the other on his lips in surprise.

He feels completely sick when he sees the way Patrick’s face has completely shut down. He’s gathering his hoodie and his bag and cramming his hat onto his head without a word, avoiding Pete’s eyes and breathing too heavily. Pete is frozen; he can’t believe he could be so idiotic as to try to ruin everything with one stupid moment. By the time he manages to choke out, “Patrick, I didn’t mean – wait-” his bedroom door has already swung closed and he can hear Patrick’s footsteps halfway down the stairs.

Pete runs his hand through his hair in panic and tries to fight the bile rising from his stomach. Forget not sleeping, what about the friendship, what about the band? Then the clock on his nightstand catches his eye and he realizes it’s almost 3am. Pete had picked Patrick up at six the previous evening and they’d ordered Chinese; Patrick had no way of getting home, unless he was willing to risk calling his mom at this time of night.

The least Pete could do after wrecking things so spectacularly is drive Patrick home. He grabs his keys and heads after him, apologizing to his mom halfway down when she comes out to see what’s going on after being woken by the sound of Patrick on the stairs. Out on the quiet street there’s no sign of Patrick; Pete had been kind of hoping that he’d be waiting by Pete’s car, ready to accept an apology or even demanding one. Maybe he went to the corner to call his mom and wait for her? Pete feels extremely uneasy when he gets to the corner and there’s still no sight or sound of anyone. He calls Patrick’s name, loud enough that if he was nearby he would hear, but quiet enough not to disturb anyone in the nearby houses.

Then he hears the tiniest sound, a whimper maybe, and his heart is suddenly hammering in his throat as he looks around wildly for the source.

A little further along the perpendicular street, in the circle of dim light provided by a streetlamp, there’s a dark shape. Pete’s stomach seems to plummet somewhere closer to his shoes. Is that a person? It can’t be Patrick. Barely five minutes have passed since he left Pete’s house. It’s probably just a hobo, but he might need help, so Pete approaches cautiously. Then his foot scuffs against something dropped on the sidewalk, and he realizes it’s Patrick’s cap.

He runs to the body under the streetlight and drops to his knees when he sees that it’s unmistakably Patrick lying there, making strange little sounds like crying or strangled laughter. He doesn’t care about the rough ground biting through his jeans; he tilts Patrick’s chin up to try and see his eyes but his fingers encounter something sticky, and his hand comes away stained red.

Pete doesn’t have his cell phone, and he’s so worked up by this point it takes him a few moments to think of looking in Patrick’s bag, dropped on the ground beside him, but Patrick’s phone isn’t in there either. He must have left it in Pete’s room in his hurry to leave. Pete pulls the collar of Patrick’s jacket away from his neck to try to see where the blood is coming from, and sees an ugly wound in the side of the boy’s throat, more savage than any knife could inflict. Pete is aware of a weird “ahh ahhh ahhh” sound and looks around in fear of whoever did this coming back for him too, then he realizes the noise is coming from his own mouth. He tries to hold his lips shut with one shaking hand and fumbles for Patrick’s wrist with the other. He can feel his pulse oddly strongly under his fingertips, and he almost collapses forward in relief. He twists his fingers in between Patrick’s and squeezes tightly, saying as clearly as he can manage, “Patrick? Can you hear me? Can you tell me what happened? Patrick? _Patrick?”_

Pete’s heart jumps when Patrick squeezes back weakly. He lowers his head towards Patrick’s mouth, swearing he can hear him murmuring something. His eyes flicker open and they’re strangely unfocused, staring off somewhere over Pete’s shoulder.

“Pete?”

“Patrick, I’m sorry, I’m here, I don’t know what to do-“

“Pete, why are there so many stars?”

“I don’t have a phone to – what? Stars?”

Pete follows Patrick’s eyes and looks up at the night sky, but all he sees is blackness tinged a murky orange from city light pollution. He wonders what Patrick is seeing.

“Patrick, who did this to you? What happened?” Pete has transcended panic and is now in a state of semi-efficient calm, pulling his tshirt over his head without even a thought for the chill in the air and pressing it to Patrick’s neck. He doesn’t know how much blood Patrick’s already lost, but there’s enough of it on the sidewalk now to be soaking into the knees of Pete’s jeans, and even his lips are somehow stained red. Had his jugular vein or carotid artery or whatever the fuck it was called been severed? Surely if it had he’d be dead already? Shit. Pete is useless, he doesn’t know anything or how to help and he knows that he probably shouldn’t move Patrick from under the lamppost but he doesn’t want to leave him here, alone and vulnerable, while he runs for help. He also knows he doesn’t have a choice. He squeezes Patrick’s hand again, hard, as he slides his fingers away and struggles jerkily to his feet.

*

It’s several long minutes after Pete woke up the inhabitants of the closest house desperately banging on their door when the ambulance arrives, and Pete goes with Patrick without a second thought. He feels completely useless again when he can’t tell the EMTs anything about what happened to Patrick, and they won’t let him hold the younger boy’s hand because he’d get in the way, so he just sits to the side, not realizing that he’s trembling until one of them drapes a foil blanket around his bare shoulders.

When they get to the hospital they rush Patrick away while a nurse interrogates Pete for as many details as he can give and sends someone to call Patrick’s parents. Pete realizes that his own parents won’t know where he’s gone and has to beg money for the payphone. The nurse is sympathetic and lends him enough quarters to call home. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until he hears his mother telling him she’s on her way.

He sits in the waiting room and doesn’t react when two cops walk in until they head straight for him. Pete knows how it must look; older guy covered in tattoos with jeans stained with blood and dirt, and a helpless kid almost bleeding out. He’s as honest as he can be and he thinks his shaking clasped hands might have swayed them in his favor, because they leave him alone as soon as his parents arrive.

His mother has brought him a change of clothes, and Pete has to sit down on the closed toilet lid in the bathroom stall and calm his breathing when he has to peel the jeans off, sticking to his skin in places where Patrick’s blood seeped through. He must have spaced out, stained jeans scrunched in his lap and head in his hands, because he’s surprised when his father bangs on the stall door and asks if he’s alright. He’s been in there for twenty minutes.

When he comes out, hoping his eyes aren’t puffy and red, there’s a nurse standing with his mother who gives him an encouraging smile as he approaches. They tell him that Patrick is stable and though he lost a dangerous amount of blood, he’s going to be fine. Patrick’s parents arrived when Pete was in the bathroom and are in there with their son now. Pete’s mom tells him that they should probably go, it’s family only right now, but Pete is so overwhelmed with a mixture of relief and guilt that she has to tug him by the arm out to the car.

*

Pete spends most of the following week shut in his room, not sleeping. The first couple of days are spent in a kind of horrified paralysis, wondering if Patrick blames him too, what actually happened out on that street before Pete got there, if he even remembers what happened right before. He tries to distract himself by writing lyrics, but it’s the song he and Patrick were working on, and before he knows what he’s doing the pages are ripped out and scrunched up, and Pete throws them away from him without bothering to look where they land.

On the third day Patrick’s mom comes round and wants to talk to Pete about it, and he’s been dreading it since they got back from the hospital that night. She takes one look at his face and the shadows under his eyes and tells him straight away that none of the Stumph family blame Pete for what happened. Patrick’s memories were hazy (he’d hit his head on the sidewalk when he was knocked down) but when he’d come to he’d told the doctors and police that he’d been attacked by somebody who came out of nowhere and seemed to _bite_ him. It all happened in a few seconds and the attacker had fled when they heard Pete calling for Patrick; Patrick’s mom seems to think that Pete had been some kind of hero, saving Patrick from something far worse that could have happened if he hadn’t arrived in time. That doesn’t change the fact that it was Pete’s fault that Patrick was out there in the first place though. Apparently when asked why he was out there alone, all Patrick could recall was that he and Pete had argued over something.

“He doesn’t blame you, Pete,” Patrick’s mom repeats, resting a hand over one of his when he doesn’t lift his eyes from the mug of coffee on the table before him. “He’s thankful that you got there in time and stayed with him.”

“Can I see him?” Pete asks, forcing himself to meet her eyes. Her face shuts down a little and she tells him, awkwardly, that he’s only just been released from hospital and is going to be staying at home resting for the next few days. No visitors.

Pete can tell that underneath that there’s something more. Patrick may not blame him, but he would bet that Patrick told his mom before she came over that he doesn’t want to see Pete.

When Patrick’s mom has left, Pete returns to his room and digs out a clean notepad for the first time in three days, holds the pen over the first marked line. No words come out.

*

He tried calling Patrick a few times, but every time Patrick’s mom answered the house phone and told him that Patrick wasn’t up to coming to the phone.

Pete has cycled through every ragged emotion he thinks is possible concerning his confusion of feelings over Patrick and what happened, and he’s now settled on a grim determination to face Patrick and talk this out. He wants to know where they stand. He feels a little like a stalker when he sits in his car at the end of Patrick’s street and waits for Patrick’s mom to leave to go grocery shopping like she does every Saturday at 2.00pm. Apparently the routine hasn’t been disrupted. He saw Patrick’s sister in the car with their mom when they passed, so he’s expecting it when Patrick’s older brother Kevin answers the front door.

Patrick, or his mom, doesn’t seem to have briefed him on allowing Pete in, because he greets Pete with a “hey, man!” and steps aside to let him in.

“My mom just made Patrick lunch before she went out, but yell if he needs me to get anything else for him,” he says seriously as he waves a hand in the general direction of Patrick’s room before heading to the couch and the football game playing on TV.

Pete nods and takes the stairs slowly and quietly, stopping outside the closed door to Patrick’s room and hesitating with his fist in the air. He barely has a second to work up the guts to knock before the door opens and Patrick is standing there, looking, to Pete’s surprise, more or less fine. He looks a little pale and worn and Pete can see a clean dressing on his neck, but his eyes are bright and his fingers are drumming restlessly against his thigh.

“Damn it, Kevin. I told him not to let anyone in to see me.”

Pete doesn’t quite know what to say, but Patrick just steps back into his room and gestures for Pete to follow. “Are you just gonna stand there? Might as well come in.”

He nudges the door closed behind Pete with one foot and leans back against it with his arms crossed. Pete takes a seat on the chair in front of the desk, where the lunch tray Patrick’s mom had brought him sits untouched. There’s a stretch of uncomfortable silence where Patrick stares Pete down but neither say a word.

“You look… better,” Pete offers lamely. He almost smiles when Patrick rolls his eyes and moves over to his neatly made bed, settling down cross-legged with a kind of unfamiliar easy grace Pete knows the other boy has never possessed.  He leans forward in the chair, since Patrick seems to have positioned himself as far from Pete as he can get, and clasps his hands around one knee.

“So… do you want to talk about it?” he asks after another minute of silence. He left the question open so Patrick could decided whether the “it” was the attack or the kiss that preceded it, but Patrick seems to pale a little, as if he wasn’t expecting Pete to get to the point so soon.

He turns his head as if to look out the window, but the curtains are closed. He scratches absently at his ankle and moves to push his glasses up his nose, but he’s not wearing them. Pete follows his gaze to the nightstand, where the glasses are lying with one lens cracked, still smeared a little red.

“My mom is picking up new ones today,” Patrick says hollowly. Pete can tell that he’s building himself up to say something more important, but it takes its time coming.

“Pete,” he says, holding his friend’s gaze steadily, “do you believe in vampires?”

It takes a second for that to filter through Pete’s brain; he’d been prepared for “Pete, I don’t want to be in the band anymore”, not this. He can’t help letting out a snort of laughter, instantly becoming contrite when Patrick’s jaw clenches.

“Sorry, dude, really, but… are you sure you’re okay? I mean, what brought that on?” he asks, as kindly as he can manage.  Patrick stares down at his hands, extending his fingers as if examining the guitar calluses. Then suddenly he’s right in front of Pete, lips barely an inch from his own, eyes burning into his, trapping Pete in the desk chair with a hand on either arm. Pete blinks dazedly. He didn’t even see Patrick move. It’s like he’s in a dream, time suspended, smelling the mint of toothpaste from Patrick’s mouth. Before he can even open his mouth to speak, Patrick is back on the other side of the room, twisting his hands together in his lap in obvious agitation.

“My mom told you that he bit me, right? The guy who…”

Pete nods slowly. “Did you see the guy? Do you know who it was?”

Patrick shakes his head and makes a small strangled sound, like a restrained sob. “I went looking for him, though. The last few nights I’ve been searching those streets in case he came back, but he didn’t.”

Pete is confused. “Hold up. You’ve been in bed recovering for days now. Your mom said-“

“My mom doesn’t know, Pete. I can’t tell her.”

Pete doesn’t think they’re both referring to the same thing.

“I just needed to know… not just why, but what. What he’s done to me.”

Pete is never usually so slow on the uptake, but his brain is refusing to entertain the train of thought Patrick is trying to lead him on.

“So I snuck out at night and went looking for him, but he’s just gone. So I’m… like this, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Are you well enough to be sneaking out? I mean, obviously it’s a stupid idea to go looking for someone who attacked you at all, but your neck – “

Patrick tips his head back in exasperation and pulls the dressing away from his neck. “Pete, that healed up on the first day.”

“Wha-?” he starts to ask, but he can see clearly enough in the dim room that the vicious wound is non-existent. Barely a mark remains, let alone a scar.

“He made me drink his blood, forced it in my mouth. He had some, in this little bottle, and he said it was a test. If it didn’t poison me, he’d know it worked.”

Pete is frozen, Patrick’s words floating in his ears as all he sees in front of his eyes yet again is the image of Patrick on the ground in front of him, bloodstained lips turned up at the corners as he asks Pete about the stars. He feels cold as Patrick relentlessly recounts his experience, pain and a blissed out semi-wakefulness before he woke up and everything was different.

Patrick is looking at him, pleading silently for him to understand, not to think he’s crazy. And maybe Pete would think that, another time. But right now he’s confused and hasn’t slept more than two fitful hours in three days, and when Patrick confesses in a desperate voice that he can’t stomach food or bear direct sunlight on his skin he looks so lost and young that Pete is grounded by the reminder that Patrick is his friend, probably his best friend, and whatever this is, Pete is going to be there to help him figure it out.

“So you think…” Pete wants to believe Patrick, he really does, but reality is so ingrained in him that the words feel ridiculous on his tongue and take too long to fall out of his mouth. “…you’re a vampire?”

Patrick just looks at him, and he looks like he might cry. Pete remembers the squeak of surprise he made the first time he hugged him, and the way his lips tasted kind of like tea when he kissed him, and he thinks that if Patrick resented Pete for what happened he wouldn’t be telling him any of this. So he manages to stand and cross the room, much more slowly than Patrick had, and he pulls the younger boy into a hug until Patrick’s head is resting on his shoulder and his nose is buried in Pete’s shirt. Pete feels Patrick tense immediately but then he inhales, as if he’s breathing in Pete’s scent, and when he pulls away to look at him Patrick’s eyes are dark, pupils dilated.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Patrick whispers, staring at Pete’s throat, where he can now feel his pulse jumping in some primal reaction of fear; he’s not scared, not really. This is _Patrick_. No matter what’s been done to him.  Pete still feels like he hasn’t quite caught up, that maybe will Patrick will give it up and reveal it as an elaborate prank, because vampires don’t exist, they _can’t_ – but then he sees the flashes of Patrick’s canines extending, and his hiss of pain as the points scrape his full lower lip. Whoa. Fangs? This close, Pete can see that Patrick isn’t faking this. His eyes are flashing a warning but Pete doesn’t back away. He hears himself saying, quite calmly, “Do you need to drink blood?”

Patrick nods, and runs one hand through his hair until it’s standing up all over.

“Not from you, Pete. I can’t… I won’t do that to you.”

“Have you done this before?”

Patrick moves backwards, far more slowly than Pete knows he is now capable of, and nods again wretchedly as he sits on the edge of his bed. “Last night, when I was looking for him… I was so hungry. It’s like a burning in every vein, in my lungs, and there was this girl waiting for a cab.”

He swallows and Pete doesn’t say anything, just waits for him to continue. “I promise I didn’t hurt her, it wasn’t like what he did to me. I was in control, mostly. I almost didn’t stop, but then the cab was coming.”

“And she just left?” Pete is a little incredulous. “After you pretty much assaulted her?”

Patrick winces at the word, shoulders bowing under Pete’s judgement. “I can do this thing, now. I can sort of… hypnotize people.”

He looks sheepish when he meets Pete’s eyes again. Now that there’s some distance between them again, his teeth and eyes have returned to their normal state. “I did it to my mom. I feel… so terrible about it, but I need her to think I’m okay-“

Suddenly Patrick is crying, looking as surprised at this development as if Pete was the one standing in front of him claiming to be a vampire.

Pete doesn’t hesitate to sit down on the bed next to Patrick, and settle his arm around his shoulders. Patrick tries to shrug away but Pete grips tighter, refusing to let him run away.

“You better get used to me being this close, Patrick. I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s just like before, Pete being too clingy, but it seems to be what Patrick needs. His sniffs turn into chuckles and he turns into Pete’s embrace and hugs him back, tighter than he ever had before, only withdrawing when Pete hears the faint sound of a car door slamming and realizes that Patrick’s mom is home.

“Should I go?” he asks. He himself isn’t doing too well processing all of this; he can’t imagine how it must be for Patrick. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” Patrick exhales shakily, standing up and heading over to his desk. “I just need a little more time to figure this out, and think about things. What this means for everything. The band, and telling Joe…”

Pete nods, his heart sinking a little. Patrick hands him the bowl of soup from the tray on the desk, now stone cold, with an apologetic smile.

“Also, could you get rid of this for me before you go? My mom…”

“Anything,” Pete promises, far too serious for draining a bowl of cold chicken soup in two long gulps, and he thinks Patrick gets it, because this time the smile he receives is fiercely glad and only a little wistful.

*

The next day Pete feels like it was maybe a bad dream, only he knows he wasn’t asleep. He’d spent the night salvaging the crumpled lyrics of the song he and Patrick had almost finished, but he hadn’t got much further on his own. He has to stop himself from calling Patrick, but distractions like trying to clean his room turn out to only work for his hands and not his mind.

He tries surfing the net for a while, ignoring the notifications of new IMs from his friend Chris because he doesn’t think he can talk to him right now when he’ll inevitably want to know his side of the story about what happened to Patrick.

 _Speak of the devil._ Patrick’s username flashes at the bottom of the screen to indicate that he’s online. Pete has barely tapped out ‘hey’ before a message from Patrick pops up.

**[02:08AM] Prince84:** _are you okay?_

 **[02:08AM] PeteArma:** _am *I* okay? dude_

 **[02:10AM] Prince84:** _I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you_

 **[02:10AM] Prince84:** _but I’m dealing with a lot of things and I didn’t want to make promises I couldn’t keep about the band_

 **[02:11AM] Prince84:** _and some of these things would probably freak you out even more._

 **[02:11AM] PeteArma:** _I told you. Not gonna run away_

 **[02:12AM] Prince84:** _I think I might need to though._

 **[02:12AM] Prince84:** _I mean, move out so I don’t have to try so hard to hide this from anyone. you’re still the only one who knows._

 **[02:12AM] PeteArma:** _we can get an apartment! Joe was looking for 1_

 **[02:15AM] PeteArma:** _if you need to talk more about… this, then I’m here you know. I’m always here_

 **[02:20AM] Prince84:** _I know._

*

It’s almost a week later when Patrick climbs in through Pete’s bedroom window at 3 in the morning.

He’d left it open a little like he always did, a force of habit from when he was younger and he smoked a lot and didn’t want his mom to know. It’s not like Pete was asleep, and Patrick doesn’t seem to have expected him to be, because he flashes Pete a smile as he closes the window behind him. He doesn’t offer an explanation for how he managed to climb up and Pete doesn’t ask, just raises his eyebrows and tries not to let his face crack into a grin. He can see a spot of red at the corner of Patrick’s mouth, but he doesn’t want to mention it.

Pete was huddled under a blanket in his boxers with his notebook held to his chest while he pondered lyrics, but he tosses the book and pen onto the carpet when Patrick lifts the edge of the blanket, toeing off his sneakers and sliding in next to Pete like it’s something he’s always done.

Patrick settles on his side, close enough for Pete to kiss him again, if he was stupid enough to try.

“When’s our next gig?” are the first words he speaks, and Pete can’t help it. He smiles so big his eyes crinkle up and it’s worth it to hear Patrick’s soft laughter and feel his fingers reaching for Pete’s hand under the blanket, squeezing the way Pete had squeezed Patrick’s when he was lying on the sidewalk in a pool of his own blood.

“Joe has something lined up for next weekend but he was going to cancel if you didn’t call him by Wednesday to let him know if you could make it.”

Patrick looks down and wriggles his toes against Pete’s shins. “I was thinking… we shouldn’t tell Joe.”

Pete lets a beat of silence go by. “Are you sure? Have you told anyone else?”

“Just you.” Patrick gives Pete a wry smile, one side of his mouth hitching up further than the other in an awkward way that makes Pete’s heart constrict. Patrick hasn’t brought up the kiss and Pete doesn’t want to be the one to bring it up if he wants to pretend it never happened, because he thinks that maybe just being with Patrick like this is enough for now.

“I was panicking a lot, and I just thought that if anyone was going to understand, it would be you.”

Pete tightens his grip on Patrick’s fingers. The past week’s worth of worried exhaustion seems to press down on him at once and he closes his eyes, lulled as always by the comfort of Patrick’s presence.

“You know, I guess you won’t be staying up alone anymore,” Patrick murmurs with a quiet laugh.

“You mean you don’t-?”

“I can’t seem to sleep, no. I get a little groggy sometimes during the day, but that’s all. No more dreams, I guess.”

“No more nightmares,” Pete yawns, and Patrick nudges his jean-clad knee against Pete’s bare leg and says, “Go to sleep, Pete.”

He wakes from dreams he doesn’t remember with a stale taste in his mouth and a slight headache. Patrick is sitting on the other bed, surrounding by pages from Pete’s notebook and with Pete’s guitar across his lap.

“I was trying to play quietly,” he says by way of ‘good morning’. “Sorry if I woke you.”

“S’okay,” Pete groans as he rolls over and into a sitting position. He forgets he’s only in his underwear and he wouldn’t care, really, but Patrick is carefully averting his eyes, and it’s such a familiar _Patrick_ thing that Pete starts laughing as he goes to pull on yesterday’s jeans and tshirt again.

“Dude, I can smell you from here. Go take a shower and put some clean clothes on.”

“Fine, mom,” Pete shoots the crumpled sweaty shirt at Patrick, and whereas before it would probably have landed on his face and Patrick would have yelled, Patrick just swats it out of the air almost lazily.

“Nice try, Wentz. Hurry up, I have something to show you.”

When Pete comes back after half an hour, a shower and a hot coffee, Patrick plays him something he wrote while Pete was sleeping.

“What do you think about this for a bassline?”

“I think,” Pete smiles, “this just might work out.”

He really thinks it will. 


	2. Chapter 2

**_Goodbye to love_ **

**_Well it’s alright I’ll push you up right against the wall_ **

****

In the following months, Pete discovers that being in a band is actually pretty much the ideal career for a vampire. They only rehearse in the late afternoon and play shows at night, and it’s just an accepted fact that Patrick is a night owl who stays up working on new music, so nobody questions it when he doesn’t come out of his room or climb out of the van until 3pm most days, or prefers to work late shifts at the frozen foods place he got a job at to help make rent. It’s not like Patrick will burst into flames if he stands in the sun, but his smooth pale skin did start to blister before Pete pulled him into the shade when they decided to test that theory. Again, it goes unquestioned that Patrick always wears his denim jacket and caps pulled low over his eyes; people just assume Patrick is shy, and they’re partially right anyway. Joe is the only person who might notice anything enough to get suspicious, but since they moved into their apartment and he was away from the supervision of his parents, he was too busy taking advantage of the joys of weed.

Patrick doesn’t spend nights in Pete’s room here, but he does spend most of them staying up sitting on the couch watching late night TV with the volume turned down almost completely so as not to wake anyone. He says he can hear it just fine even though it may as well be mute to Pete, who would rather stay up with him and sleep on the couch than try and get a few fitful hours of rest alone in his own bed. They’ve started travelling further out in the shitty white van to play any show they can book, even though there’s been too many times they’ve pulled up outside a basement venue after a six hour drive and been told their slot was cancelled. Pete likes those days best, when he can drive through the night with Patrick in the front seat next to him, singing along quietly to the radio while the others nap in the back.

Even with the disappointments of cancelled shows, it feels like they’re going somewhere. The shows they do play are pulling in gradually larger crowds of kids, and some labels are finally starting to pay attention. Pete knows it’s because of Patrick, but the younger boy doesn’t have the patience to hear Pete extol his virtues. Those conversations generally go along the lines of Patrick resignedly blaming the “vampirism” for any talent he may possess, and waving away Pete’s insistence that he was golden before some freak poured his blood down Patrick’s throat.

 Patrick really doesn’t like to talk about that night anymore, but Pete can’t stand being the only one who knows and still being shut out. Patrick brings girls home sometimes (at least he assumes it’s girls), usually when Pete has been working all day at the record store he part-times at and is too tired to stay up and see them (and Patrick) do the walk of shame. Since none of them stay the night, Pete can only assume that Patrick feels less guilty about feeding on their blood and skewing their memories of it if he can give them something in return (and it probably doesn’t hurt that he can get some action himself, though Pete knows that Patrick wouldn’t be selfish that way even though Pete would if it was him). After a few months of this, of Patrick acting as if he doesn’t keep these secrets from Pete, it finally leads to a confrontation when Pete talks a slightly high Joe into poking a hole through Patrick’s door with a knife one day while Patrick is working an evening shift. It’s not like he’s a voyeur or anything, but he wants to know what Patrick’s doing. If he’s honest, it hurts a little that Patrick doesn’t trust him enough after all to let him in on how he’s dealing with the needs of being a vampire.

Unsurprisingly, the botched job Joe did with the knife doesn’t slip Patrick’s attention like Pete hoped it would, and after a yelling match during which Joe loyally tries to pretend it wasn’t Pete’s idea before slinking out to go and hang out at their friend Andy’s place, Pete ends up almost blurting out something dangerous.

“Why the fuck would you want to spy on me through the door?!”

“Why would you want to bring people home–“ _to your bed who aren’t me_ “-when you think I can’t hear you?”

Patrick blushes (it had surprised Pete and irked Patrick when they first realized he still blushed very visibly) but his lips set in a hard line.

“Because I don’t want to draw attention to these things I have to do. It’s not like I’m doing it because I want to. And anyway, it’s not really any of your business.”

“What if I _want_ it to be my business?” Pete shoots back before his brain can filter his mouth.

Patrick looks at him steadily for a moment, then sighs and drops onto the couch. He rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. His shoulders are hunched and for a horrible second Pete thinks Patrick may be crying, but when Pete sits down cautiously next to him Patrick leans back and tilts his head over the back of the couch, staring at the cracks in the dirty ceiling.

“I’m sorry for shutting you out, Pete. I know you’re…” he pauses, eyes  resolutely following the lines in the plaster radiating from the light fixture, possibly thinking of all the times in the last few months when Pete has wrapped an arm around his neck and planted a kiss on the top of his head or his cheek before laughing and running away, or offered to help with “Patrick’s problem” in full earshot of the other guys and caused a slew of innuendoes.  But Pete only pushes Patrick’s boundaries when he’s truly desperate for his attention, and it only gets that bad every now and then. He’s tried to be independent from Patrick, he really has, especially when the younger boy took to those 3am trysts and not talking about anything other than the band, work, or the weather. He should have known that he wouldn’t fool Patrick.

“I’m what? Pathetically needy?” Pete tries to crack a joke in the silence but it’s his voice that cracks instead.

Patrick finally looks over at him, eyes sympathetic.

“You’re not pathetic. Just really annoying sometimes,” he smiles wryly, then chews distractingly on his lower lip for a moment. “I didn’t want you to get involved in this because… I hate it. Okay? I wanted to make you think that I was alright with this now, or as alright as I could be. But I’m not. I hate that the only things good about me are probably caused by this… _sickness_. And all the awful things it’s caused… I have to prey on people and mess with their minds like some kind of pervert just to get what I need to keep going. I hate that I’m still so confused because there’s nobody who really knows the answers to this who can help me. I don’t want you to see any of that. I don’t want you to think I’m a monster. I just want to be the same old Patrick around you.”

He stares down at his pale hands, twisting them together in his lap, and Pete is reminded of the nervous boy in the basement of his parent’s house the first time they met, what must have been over a year and a half ago now. He reaches over and pulls Patrick into a tight hug like he did back then, pulling him over awkwardly and smushing Patrick’s face into his shoulder, and he can feel Patrick chuckling into the front of his jacket. He’s not wearing his glasses this time – he technically doesn’t need to wear them at all since his vision is more than perfect now, but he still does most of the time to keep up appearances.

“What do I have to do to get through to you that I’m never going to not want to see any part of you?” Pete rolls his eyes, lifting a hand to run it through the hair on the back of Patrick’s head, which had been thinning before he was attacked. As always, Patrick is a little stiff in Pete’s arms, but whereas every time he’s tried to get ahold of him in the six months or so they’ve lived here Patrick would take the first opportunity to extricate himself with a fixed smile that was like a dagger to Pete’s chest, this time he relaxes and allows Pete to touch him, to trust that Patrick isn’t going to turn into a monster and hurt him. It’s ludicrous to Pete that Patrick would entertain the thought that Pete would be afraid of Patrick or disgusted by him. If anything Pete had always worried that Patrick would think that of him, whenever Pete presented him with the words strung together from the darkest bitter thoughts in his head about love and hate and exes and the unfairness of life. Patrick had never flinched from Pete’s darkness, and Pete sure as hell would never turn his back on Patrick because of his own, even if it was of a different kind.

He tries to tell Patrick as much, but he’s busy twisting himself around and pulling his legs up onto the couch, so the upper half of his body is leaning across Pete. He has his eyes closed when he says, “Sometimes I miss being able to sleep. I know what it must have been like for you now, never being able to shut your mind off or escape yourself, being alone in the middle of the night all the time.”

Pete adjusts his arm under Patrick’s neck to avoid it going numb. He wants to say _you don’t have to be alone_ , but he’s pretty sure now that Patrick already gets it. Patrick opens his eyes, looking directly at Pete, and Patrick can see that his irises aren’t as blue as usual; the ring around his contracted pupils is startlingly yellow. Pete knows from watching Patrick that this is his primal reaction to being close to a human body and the blood and life within it (though he hates that he automatically thinks of Patrick as something other than human, because it’s not like he’s the living dead like something out of horror fiction. His heart still beats – Pete can feel his leisurely pulse right now in Patrick’s wrist under his fingertips – and he still inhales and exhales). If Patrick was thirsty though he wouldn’t be lying there so serenely, hands resting on his stomach, while Pete absently drums a rhythm on the outside of his wrist, like a heartbeat.

“I could help, you know,” Pete says. “We could work out a system, so you don’t have to trick people into… um…”

Patrick sits back up, eyes flashing a little, and Pete slaps a hand to left the side of his face at his own thoughtlessness.

“Not that, you know, I think you can’t… get people to… I was just saying… that it might be easier if, like, we could find people for you to drink from at shows. Large crowds, some drunk people, you know? I can cover for you and stuff.”

“How is that any more ethical?” Patrick asks skeptically. When Pete shrugs – morals go out the window when it comes to the wellbeing of his best friend, whether that makes him a terrible human being or not – he continues, “I can go for two or three weeks at a time without needing to… so I’m good until the week after next.”

“We have the gig in Milwaukee.”

“We can try… that, then. If you really want to help me.”

He’s trying to hide it, but Pete can tell that Patrick is relieved at the thought of not having to sneak people in and out of their apartment anymore. He turns his face away as he gets up and goes into his room.

“Oh, and Pete? You better fix this damn door.”

*

Pete’s ideas tend to need a little fine-tuning. He contemplates this as he and Patrick carry the unconscious woman back into the building through the back exit.

“Why did you hit her?!” Patrick asks for the fifth time, the unspoken “you absolute idiot” hanging in the air as Pete struggles to keep a good grip on her ankles. Patrick is supporting most of her weight with his arms under her shoulders as they deposit her on the couch in one of the backstage rooms.

“I guess I panicked when she kept staring at me. Like, she saw my face, you know?”

“We’re not murderers, Pete. This isn’t a cop show. And in case you didn’t notice, she also saw _my_ face. I was the one she thought she was making out with. And I’ve _told_ you that I erase their memories afterwards.”

“Well, yeah…”

“And maybe she was staring at you because you were staring at her,” he continues, raising his eyebrows at Pete. “You were supposed to be ‘keeping a lookout’, not watching us.”

Pete shuffles his feet uncomfortably. He hadn’t been able to help it. He was just a little bit fascinated with the way Patrick worked on the lady in the homemade Racetraitor shirt. Pete guessed getting bitten must feel good somehow, or Patrick was making her think it felt good, because she had been moaning a lot. And yeah, he was slightly aroused by that, and the way Patrick’s fingers traced her arms as he held her still. Then Patrick had stepped away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes gleaming in the semi-darkness of the alley, and she had stared at Pete as if noticing him standing there for the first time, like “what the fuck are you looking at?”. He guessed he’d been too caught up in the moment, still amped from the show and trying not to get hard in his jeans, because his impulsive response was to think “fuck”, grab the small plank of wood that had been wedging the door open and smack her in the side of the head. He hadn’t realized what he’d done until she’d dropped like a stone and Patrick was suddenly wrenching the piece of wood out of his hands and whisper-yelling, “What the fuck, Pete? Why did you hit her?”

Patrick is checking the girl over when she starts to stir. She opens her eyes slowly and groans, focusing them in a glare when she sees Pete hovering behind Patrick’s shoulder.

“What the fuck did you do?”

“Calm down a second, Angie,” Patrick says soothingly in a voice like honey. Pete can feel the hypnotic influence Patrick is exuding in her direction like it’s something physical hanging in the air.

“Pete, go and get one of the bouncers so they can get someone to take Angie to the hospital. She thinks she drank too much and she fell and hit her head. She might have a concussion.”

“What? No I didn’t. Your stupid bassist hit me in the damn head with something just now, you were right there –“

Pete doesn’t hear the rest of conversation because he closes the door behind him, but when he comes back with Harry, the place’s head of security, Angie is sitting on the couch next to Patrick, saying, “I must have drunk too much, I’m sorry. I have no idea how I even got back here.”

“That’s okay. Harry’s gonna help you out,” Pete smiles encouragingly, glad that Angie no longer looks like she wants to kick Pete in the crotch.

When they’ve gone, Patrick stands and just looks at Pete in silence. His face is grim and he’s pinching the bridge of his nose like a tired man at least ten years older.

“Well, that’s that. Generally before this, things have gone a lot less violently,” he says, trying for a laugh but sounding hollow. Pete can tell straight off that Patrick isn’t even mad at Pete, not really. He’s too busy worrying that Pete will be scared away after seeing him do that to somebody.

“Sorry I fucked up, man. I won’t hit the mark next time.”

Patrick can’t help a grin. “The mark? Not a cop show, Pete.”

Pete shrugs. There is one thing about the night’s ordeal that made him uneasy.

“Do you do that to everyone?” he asks quietly. “The hypnotic thing. Changing their thoughts and messing with their memories.”

Patrick looks at him steadily. “Only to people I drink from, so they forget any details, and only because I have to. I’ve never done it to anyone else. Especially not to you.”

The door suddenly bursts open and Joe comes in, shattering the quiet tension with an unrestrained belch. He’s holding a pizza box and waving a slice of its contents in the air.

“Hurry the fuck up, guys, they practically paid us in dimes so you’d better snap up the free pizza quick before the others do.”

“Looks like you already snapped up most of it,” Pete remarks as he takes the box from Joe and finds it more than half empty. He shoves as much of a full slice as he can fit into his mouth to hide his grin.

Patrick pretends to take a bite of the slice Joe hands him, then when Joe turns back to Pete he drops it on the floor and slides it behind him with his left foot, for the next person who cleans under the couch to find. He catches Pete watching and smiles the widest Pete’s seen possibly since before that night.

“Chris is jumping the grenade tonight so we can crash at this girl Jules’s place,” Joe informs them as he dumps the greasy pizza box into a trash can in the corner of the room. “I don’t know how many beds her place has, though.”

When they get to Jules’s and she lets them in before disappearing upstairs with their friend, who honestly doesn’t look too bummed out to be taking one for the team, they find that there are in fact no other beds in her apartment, only a couch and an armchair. Pete has a wild hope that maybe this will result in him and Patrick having to spoon on the couch, but Patrick takes the chair and he ends up having to top and tail with Joe. He can’t help feeling disgruntled with Joe’s dirty socks right by his face (though to be fair his feet probably don’t smell much better), and from the smirk on Patrick’s face he figures he did it on purpose.

Pete wriggles around a lot in an attempt to get semi-comfortable until Joe knees him in the side to get him to stop before he pushes Joe onto the floor, and eventually they settle down.

Sometime later, Pete becomes aware of a quiet noise  from the other side of the room. The sound of Patrick’s breathing is lower and there is a brush of fabric against fabric. He’s not…?

Pete can’t help it. He turns his head slightly to look. Jules’s apartment is on the second floor and there is a streetlight right outside the window leaking a little yellow light through the closed curtains, allowing Pete to see that Patrick has his belt undone and one hand moving inside his underwear, the other clenched on the arm of the chair, his eyes closed tightly. Then they shoot open and he’s staring right at Pete.

He opens his mouth, too embarrassed at being caught looking to even avert his eyes, but he doesn’t even say anything before Patrick just closes his eyes again, tilting his head back against the back of the armchair. The rhythm of his arm didn’t even falter.

Pete doesn’t know quite what to do. It’s not like he hasn’t caught Patrick jerking off before, because he had overheard him in a gas station bathroom stall once while he was waiting outside, and he hadn’t let Patrick forget it until Patrick had caught him with his pants down (literally) in his own bedroom when Pete’s mom had let Patrick up without calling up the stairs first to let him know. But both times had been awkward and a little funny and involved scrambling for clothes in Pete’s case and, in Patrick’s, blushing furiously every time Pete brought it up. This time Patrick doesn’t seem to care that Pete is watching; he’s rocking his hips into his hand almost like he wants him to enjoy the show, and it’s kind of blowing Pete’s mind. Joe is fast asleep, and Pete tries to think for a second about how gross it would be to jerk off with his bandmate practically wrapped around him, but he has just enough room to manoeuvre so he plunges his hand into his pants and accidentally lets out a groan when he slides it around his already hard dick. He looks back over at Patrick and swears his heart stops when he sees that Patrick is looking right at him, mouth curved in a smirk which turns into wide-eyed shock as a loud crash sounds from somewhere within the apartment.

They both jump as a female voice shrieks, “GET THE FUCK OUT!”

“Whaaa?” Joe asks blearily, sitting up and rubbing his half-flattened hair. Pete quickly withdraws his hand from his underwear before Joe notices and jumps off the couch, blocking Patrick from his view hopefully for long enough for him to sort himself out.

“Chris, what the f…?” Pete asks as his friend comes striding from the hallway to the bedrooms, pulling his shirt over his head.

“And your stupid fucking friends!” Jules shrieks, storming out after him even though she’s in her underwear. She throws one of Chris’s shoes at the back of his head and he dodges just in time.

She sees the others standing in the middle of the room in shock and glares. “I swear to God if any of you tried to take any of my stuff I’ll call the cops. Get the hell out.”

“What happened?” Joe asks in confusion, but it was the wrong move. Jules grabs a sofa cushion and flings it at Chris.

“I went into the bathroom and when I came out this jerk was going through my purse, that’s what. If you think you can stay here the rest of the night or ever come back here again you can fuck off.”

Chris has already disappeared out the door, having put his shoe on, so there’s nothing for them to do but follow him, wincing at the slam of the door. Though their situation is actually quite shitty and none of them approve of Chris trying to lift the contents of the girl’s purse, they can’t help standing around sniggering on the quiet street for a minute or two, just at the absurdity of it.

“Where the heck are Mike and TJ?” Joe asks as they pile into the van.

“I think they got a ride back to Chicago with the dudes from the Kill Pill,” Chris answers as he climbs behind the wheel. “Sorry guys. I’ll take driving duty as long as we can stop for some food in a couple hours.”

“Damn right you’re driving,” Joe mumbles as he tries to get comfortable leaning against the door, since Pete has already claimed the small part of open space in the back of the van amongst their bags, and Patrick has climbed into the middle seats. “I’m going back to sleep.”

The radio is on quietly just for some companionable noise, and Pete thinks it’s probably enough to mask his own noise if he keeps it quiet. Patrick has his back to Pete – even since he acquired lightning reflexes, he still insists on wearing a seat belt at all times. He seems preoccupied with looking in his bag for a book or something, so Pete takes the opportunity to settle in amongst the bags, loose laundry and half-torn sleeping bags and finish what Patrick had started.

He forgot about Patrick’s hearing, though. Now they’re no longer alone together in that sleepy semi-darkness, Patrick is ignoring Pete, until Pete gasps a little too loudly when he thinks of the way Patrick had been biting his lip in the armchair. Patrick’s shoulders tense and he digs out his Walkman and shoves his headphones on, very deliberately keeping his face forward.

Pete grins a little to himself and plays it up, making exaggerated little moans until he’s sure Chris or Joe must be able to hear them. It becomes genuine when he finally comes into his fist with a shudder, biting back Patrick’s name because the honesty behind it scares him enough without letting Patrick hear it.

After Pete cleans himself up with somebody’s spare tshirt (they can get mad at him later), he’s feeling sleepy enough post-orgasm that he manages to drift off for a while. At the next truck stop he’s woken up by the slamming of the van doors as the others head off in pursuit of snacks, and he feels more than a little smug when Patrick returns from the bathroom a full five minutes after Chris and Joe make it back to the van with some soda and chips for Pete. Patrick pretends to be asleep the rest of the ride home.

*

They don’t have another journey out of town in the next few weeks, and since everyone in the band is working to pay rent, Pete doesn’t see Patrick as much as he’d like. The few times when they’re hanging out on the couch at two in the morning watching game show reruns on low volume are quiet and unproductive. Patrick doesn’t bring up what happened so Pete doesn’t either, because he’s cautious now. It’s the first time Patrick has shown or reciprocated that kind of interest in Pete, and he thinks it was accidental, because Patrick rarely admits to slips in his control.

But once was enough to let Pete know he could cause one. He even goes so far in trying to spark a reaction from Patrick that he openly palms himself through his jeans while he’s “keeping watch” for Patrick at the dressing room door as he gets his fix from a painfully skinny groupie boy who was wearing more eyeliner than Pete had ever seen a dude try to pull off. Patrick had been defiantly nonchalant when he pointed out the person he was going to feed from in the crowd; he’d never talked to Pete about sexuality and Pete had never asked, assuming Patrick’s reaction that first time he’d tried to kiss him was based on confusion. Pete had just raised an eyebrow and dropped a line about how he wouldn’t mind taking a bite out of that himself, which made Patrick pull that weird face that was half amused smirk, half disgusted eye roll.

He doesn't look over at Pete while he drinks from the boy’s throat, but Patrick starts rocking his hips up against the boy’s, who moans louder and tries to move back against Patrick. Pete isn’t even pretending anymore; he’s turned on as fuck. Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s crossed the room and pulled Patrick roughly by the arm away from the guy. Patrick looks at him, startled, pupils blown and his lips smeared red as if he’s wearing make up.

“Patrick,” Pete whispers hoarsely, helplessly. He’s done with putting on a show. He’s tired of chasing and holding back and being pulled in and pushed away. “Just…”

He realizes he has the collar of Patrick’s shirt bunched in his fist, and he pulls him forward until there’s no distance between them and his lips are crushed against Patrick’s. He can taste the other guy’s blood, metallic, but then Patrick is opening Pete’s mouth with his own to slide his tongue between them and lick it away, and Pete’s legs almost buckle.

“What…?” the groupie boy interrupts in a dazed voice, hand clamped to the side of his neck. “What’s happening?”

Patrick breaks away from Pete, who lets out an involuntary whine at the loss of his mouth. Pete stumbles over to a chair while Patrick exerts his hypnotic influence over the clueless boy. Pete feels dizzy and lost and has to close his eyes, and when he opens them the boy is gone and Patrick is leaning over him, eyes hungry. Pete shivers.

“I can’t do this, Pete,” he whispers. “I had to let that boy go and I wasn’t done.”

Pete swallows, watching Patrick’s eyes follow the bob of his Adam’s apple, fascinated by the pulse in his throat.  

“You can drink from me if you need to. I want you to.”

Patrick steps back and lets out a shaky sigh, removing his cap and running his fingers through his hair until it’s sticking up every which way. He looks like he just rolled out of bed and Pete can’t help but think of getting Patrick into one.

“Please,” Pete murmurs, following Patrick across the room as he backs up until he has Patrick against the wall, the way he always traps the others. It’s Pete’s turn now.

Patrick closes his eyes and sighs. Pete is so close that Patrick’s breath flutters against his lips. His heart has been pumping faster, faster, since they kissed and he thinks it might burst out of his chest if Patrick pushes him away now, after everything. Surely Patrick can hear it. Surely he knows what this means. They can’t go back from it this time. This is everything.

He moves fast, maybe so Pete doesn’t have time to anticipate any pain, and suddenly Patrick’s mouth is latched onto his throat, hot and sucking, and there’s a small slice of pain but it’s instantly replaced by a wave of pleasurable heat radiating from the contact even as he can feel Patrick pulling the blood from his body. It should feel dangerous, or wrong, but Pete feels more alive than he ever has, even onstage or leaping into a crowd of kids screaming his name. He grabs Patrick’s hips to pull their bodies tightly together, and he can feel Patrick groan before he turns them around, Pete’s back slamming against the wall as Patrick pushes up against him, one hand cupping Pete’s jaw with calloused fingers as hot as branding irons to hold his head still. Pete slides a hand down Patrick’s back, the other reaching between them for his belt buckle. Patrick starts to hum against his skin as Pete slides his hand into Patrick’s underwear and pushes his clothing down enough to free his obviously hard cock. Pete tries to time the strokes of his fist to the pull of his blood, using precome from Patrick’s tip to make the slide less rough. Patrick doesn’t seem to mind as he bucks into Pete’s hand, rolling his hips. Then, to his surprise, Patrick pushes his hand away and lets go of his face, leaning back to stare into Pete’s eyes. That’s Pete’s blood coating Patrick’s perfect lips – inside his mouth – and it’s Pete that’s made his pupils so dilated.

“You want this?” Patrick asks quietly in an almost guttural voice, and all Pete can do is nod and lean his head back against the wall, exposing his already bruising throat in invitation.

“Take it,” he gasps, and Patrick surges forward again, resuming his greedy sucking, the alternating between swipes of his tongue and the bite of his teeth almost agonizing in the heights of the sensation they cause Pete to feel. His knees are already weak before Patrick gets his jeans undone and his hand around him. It barely takes any time – a few seconds of sloppy thrusting, of Patrick growling, “I want to make you come” in his ear before biting the sensitive skin below it – before Pete is spilling over Patrick’s fingers, still stroking him through it until he’s whimpering. His eyes have slid shut but he can feel the press of Patrick against him.

He doesn’t want this to stop even though he’s completely spent, and Patrick is still taking as much as he can get. He wants Patrick to have all of him, doesn’t want to tell him he’s surely drunk enough now. When he opens his eyes there are black spots in his vision, and suddenly he’s collapsing against Patrick, who breaks from his neck in surprise but is strong enough to hold him up.

“Pete? Pete?” Patrick’s eyes are no longer hungry; his mouth is still stained red, his teeth are outlined with it, but his voice is full of worry and dawning horror as he lowers himself to his knees, laying Pete down over his lap to check his pulse.

“Don’t make me forget,” Pete says, and feels a vague sense of embarrassment as he passes out, jeans and sticky underwear around his knees, in his best friend’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Unedited first draft/first chapter of something I started writing based off of the song Degausser by Brand New.


End file.
